Talking to children: The within-classroom nature of everyday adult language input in the early childhood educational environment

• Published in: Advances in speech-language pathology 2004, Vol.6 (4), p.237-246
• Main Authors: Marinac, Julie, Ozanne, Anne, Woodyatt, Gail
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1441-7049
• DOI: 10.1080/14417040400010025

Group-size effects, as changes in the adult language when speaking to individual or multiple children in two- and three-year-olds' Australian childcare centre classrooms were investigated. The language addressed to children by 21 staff members was coded for social (e.g., non-verbal, inferential and pragmatic), and linguistic (e.g., morphological, lexical, syntactic and referential) features. In the two-year-olds' classrooms, minimal differences were found between the language used in dyads (addressed to a single child) and polyads (addressed to more than one child). More extensive group-size effects, particularly in syntactic complexity, were found in the three-year-olds' classrooms. Explanations for the constancy of the adult language input in the younger classrooms, and the changes noted in the older rooms will be discussed in terms of plurality (i.e., more than one listener), methodology, and group-size effects that may be specific to the early childhood educational setting.